Sinnott Speaks: We're all behind Masha and he'll come back stronger than ever

Altrincham FC manager Lee Sinnott gives us the inside track on the Robins’ progress this season in the Vanarama National League. Here’s his latest column for Altrincham Today.

I’d like to start by updating everyone on the condition of centre back Tom Marshall (above), who suffered a dislocated ankle on the pitch in Tuesday night’s game against Grimsby Town.

After the match an ambulance took him to hospital where the doctors could thoroughly examine his leg and find out the extent of his injury. It’s not as bad as we feared originally but Tom will still be out for an extended period of time. All of our best wishes are with Masha in his recovery and I’m certain he’ll come back even stronger. These things unfortunately happen in football, as much as we wish they didn’t.

Watch highlights from the win over Grimsby:

We knew how important the Grimsby game was, after losing on Saturday away at Woking. To not get any points from the first three games of the season has been frustrating. So it was vital that we got our first win on the board and we were delighted to do it at the J Davidson stadium in front of our own fans with a 2-1 scoreline.

altgrim1 — **The moment of controversy – did the ball cross the line for Altrincham’s first goal?**

I thought before the game that it was a good time to play Grimsby, they are a great club and we knew it would be a testing game against a team fancied to gain promotion this season. We had nothing to lose and despite probably playing better football down at Woking, for sheer guts and determination the players deserve huge credit.

I have to be honest I gave the lads a real talking-to at half time. As well as we played in the first half, Grimsby looked like going on to win the game if we had played at the same level in the second half.

The Grimsby defence are unable to keep out George Bowerman's second goal for Alty — **The Grimsby defence are unable to keep out George Bowerman’s second goal for Alty**

But we managed to hang on in there at the start of the half with some great saves from Stuart Coburn. Most importantly when we got the chance to ask a few questions ourselves, we managed to grab the second goal at a key time in the match.

The support was superb under the lights with a large travelling contingent from Humberside to contend with. I’m certain the fans gave the players that extra bit of energy to get through the 13 minutes of time added on in the second half! Hopefully we can take this result and back it up with another positive result this coming Saturday at Dover.